


Permanent

by sirnando



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 17:54:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11041275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirnando/pseuds/sirnando
Summary: Isco is like Alvaro and Alvaro is like Isco so maybe that's why their collective decisions are bad.





	Permanent

**Author's Note:**

> so I'm not sure how to tag this because I'm ill informed about all the types but my personal tag is: sad

You could ask Alvaro if he was Isco's friend and Isco if he was Alvaro's and both of them would shrug. Because it was the honest truth: their relationship could be summed up by a shrug. 

They were neither best friends nor worst enemies. "Friendly acquaintances" Alvaro would describe it as. "Bros." was Isco's contemporary relatable way to put it.

They said hi, they said bye, they high fived sometimes and exchanged good luck's before games but it was nothing special. Nothing at all. 

Because Isco was the screaming on top of your lungs type. The drinking till it came out of your ass type. The squished mosquitoes on your arms without cleaning it up type. A wild child with the tattoo of something written in Chinese on his lower back because no one had stopped him. A guy with no filter, no fixed bank account and most of the time no underwear on.

And you'd think they'd work because Alvaro was also the screaming on top of your lungs type but only until your voice started getting scratchy not until you lost it. He had tattoos of crowns and earthworms and random stripes in random places on his forearm that he attributed elaborate explanations and meanings to, even though he didn't remember receiving any of them. He wore socks with sandals and had friends in every bar that he entered. He talked to dogs and fish and his mom had lines of girls waiting for him so that he'd just get married but he told her life was too short for that.

So even though Marcelo claimed that they were the same person in two different bodies they stayed basically away from one another. Why? Who knew. Maybe because Alvaro liked beer and Isco preferred to drain bottles of vodka. 

~

The main interaction that they had was when they were invited to Gareth Bale's party. Gareth Bale who made it a strictly non alcoholic party because he started believing in entertainment beyond getting drunk and he wanted to help his friends convert to abstinence. 

No one knew it was non alcoholic till they got there. Isco took one step in the door and turned on his heel only to have Marcelo grab his shoulder and haul him back in. Alvaro was already there sipping on a virgin piña colada. 

And in the spirit of adult virgin games, as Isco put it, they started playing truth or dare as if they were 17 and still shedding their pubic hairs. 

Isco was dared to bite Alvaro's ear. Isco took every dare seriously and so did Alvaro so Alvaro stood up and even pulled the lobe out a little further so Isco had better access. 

Isco chomped down. Alvaro screamed. Blood flowed onto the floor. So Isco took dares a little too seriously. 

But if his mom taught him one thing it was manners so he offered to drive Alvaro to the hospital even though a hospital wasn't needed but Alvaro was a tad bit on the dramatic side. 

And that's how they ended up in a backed up hospital waiting room, Alvaro clutching a wet napkin to his ear and Isco flicking dust balls into the back collars of patients.

Alvaro was sitting three seats away filling out the papers. "I don't know if I have fucking allergies. If I eat it and blow up then I'll know." He mumbled under his breath. Isco laughed.

"What?" Alvaro had turned and watched Isco net a ball into an older lady's shirt. Isco shrugged.

"The medical system."

"What?"

"The medical system." He said it in a duh tone. Alvaro rolled his eyes.

"What about it?"

"Once I went with a broken arm and they asked me if I practiced protected sex. As if my dick being naked had anything to do with me falling out of the tree. Herpes didn't snap the bone."

Alvaro had smirked and looked back to the survey. But Isco took it as a chance to scoot over next to him. 

They read the questions aloud together. Laughed at disease names. Contemplated lying about his insurance number so that he wouldn't get charged. They drew dinosaurs swallowing fireballs and stick figures ripping each other's backs off in the margins. And when Alvaro finally handed his papers over and the lady looked at it skeptically Isco asked "What? You've never seen an inverted penis before?" And it was ironic because they hadn't either but they drew it out of assumption.

Alvaro's ear had stopped bleeding by the time the doctor called him over. Isco followed and explained he had to hold his hand during the procedure and Alvaro nodded intensely himself, explaining his chronic nausea that he experienced when strangers touched him. 

"It's in the papers." He motioned towards the desk clerk. 

And all Alvaro got was an antiseptic wipe and a Superman band aid on his ear (from a box he forced the doctor to open even though the Batman ones were open) and the whole time Isco held his hand tightly and hissed through his teeth every time the doctor touched Alvaro.

The doctor made note on his papers to make sure it was a true emergency next time because Isco and Alvaro might've written that his earlobe had been completely bitten off and he had it in a ziplock baggy waiting to be sewn back on.

~

So they became casual amigos as Alvaro liked to describe it. They didn't call each other to hang out. They didn't text. But at every party and bar outing they drank shots off of the other's forehead, smoked Smarty dust in the bathrooms and Isco always made sure to hold Alvaro's hand whenever they grinded on strangers at the club.

Every time Bale had a non alcohol party they were the ones completely invested in truth or dare or scrabble (spelling things like yeet and binch) and tripping everyone in their games of Twister.

And Isco decided it was nice having a guy next to him who was just as clueless about where his life was going to lead beyond kicking balls on a field because everyone else seemed to have their lives figured out and were settling down, but whenever he asked Alvaro he would slur that he just followed the trail of whisky droplets.

"I got no idea what's at the end but it better be fucking ass splitting." And they'd both laugh hysterically because they both knew they wouldn't settle for anything else.

~

The best part was that no one questioned what they did. Nobody asked about why they rode scooters around the locker room. No one asked when they waxed off each other's armpit hair. And no one asked when they got matching tattoos of cartoon fish with open mouths that looked like they were about to eat their nipples. Alvaro's was on the left. Isco's was on the right.

They graduated from casual amigos to pretty close bunion bro's and Alvaro even bought a bumper sticker for Isco, customized, that said it.

Isco got a lot of questions when he drove around with that sticker on the back of his Benz.

And everything was perfect from the beginning of their friendship in February up until mid August because Alvaro handed in a transfer request and Isco decided making friends was fucking useless.

~

Alvaro hadn't told Isco because they were bunion bros but still hadn't reached the point where they called one another whenever they took a shit (except for once because it was taking long and Alvaro was getting bored), so Isco told himself it was useless being annoyed by it.

He just absorbed the announcement that Alvaro made in front of the whole locker room and gave him a half knuckle bump like the rest of the team. No need to be overly exuberant anyways.

But Alvaro asked if he'd get a text from time to time while he was over in Italy to which Isco responded that Italians were a bunch of pasta stuffing pricks who popped olives up their assholes and he didn't think there would be a need to remain in contact with a person who associated himself with that.

Nevertheless Alvaro promised him he'd send over a jar and some lasagna al dente and when he texted Isco about how many strangers he was meeting Isco sent a hand emoji just to reinforce the idea he knew was being sent to him.

~

Isco visited Italy a total of once. Just because Alvaro had bought him the tickets and it would've been rude to refuse.

So they walked the streets until their feet hurt, drank cheap liquor from side street shacks, tried convincing old people they were here to repossess their homes and when the sun came up again and Alvaro remembered he had to go to practice soon, they'd spit into luck fountains and run until their lungs burned, fingers crossed he'd make it on time or at least not be thrown out completely.

The one instance that Alvaro had lied about how intoxicated he was and kissed Isco on the lips was the time before Isco had crawled into bed with a sleeping Alvaro (who wasn't sleeping because he shifted to match the curve of Isco) and the time before where they laid in his bed and stared at the ceiling, pretending to find constellations in the stains that bath water had created after it seeped through.

They got tattoos of the barcode of the last wine bottle they shared in Italy under their feet and when Alvaro took Isco into his arms to say goodbye for now, Isco promised him it'd be the last time he said goodbye. 

"What?"

If bunion bros was too much to maintain long distance then this would be even more pointless. So Isco boarded the plane with nail indentations on his arm where Alvaro had refused to let go.

~

He called. He texted. He emailed and he sent the olives and lasagna but Isco threw them into the freezer and then decided to throw the freezer away when the olives exploded in it.

Alvaro's barcode had gotten infected, one of the texts said. It scarred over and now there was only part of it left. Isco read it and started picking at his own unconsciously.

At one point the contact started becoming less frequent. Isco had expected it but it was still hard to remind yourself that there wasn't any emails to check. That he didn't have an incoming text because the hundred previous ones were ignored and cross border communication had to be more expensive.

There was a photo once on the news of Alvaro and some girl leaving a restaurant. Blurry, zoomed in too much and taken in the night.

He turned the TV off, but he had caught the name of the restaurant and the smell the of dining room resonated for the rest of the night. They had thrown up until 4 in the morning that time.

~

On what could've been their first friend anniversary Isco sent a hand emoji to Alvaro and waited only three minutes to get one back and a -too many strangers... where are you?-

But he panicked. He didn't know. Rhetorical? Serious? Joking? He didn't know. -got lost in the whisky- was what he wanted to type but his fingers felt cramped and he felt the indentations of nails in his forearm again. 

Disappeared, is what he settled on. As in left unanswered.

~

They wrote about him in the papers during the summer. Headlines of moving to England, France, Italy. Alvaro asked in August if he planned on coming back.

-i never left for me to come back-

This time he was left unanswered.

~

And so he kept up with Alvaro just as Alvaro kept up with him in Italy. Headlines. No personal information unless it was gossip that he wondered about and made a list of on his fridge to further find out.

The list was pointless and then thrown out after a certain headline choked him to sleep.

Alvaro got married. She was all over the papers. Pretty. Plain. Italian. Probably made good lasagna. 

Isco cut out all the clippings of the announcements and articles. He organized a party and burned them all in the bonfire. Watched Alvaro's face melt away while his marshmallow burned.

It had been three years.

~

Isco had never sent a congratulations and he didn't expect any response ever again. Any normal person would've done so. 

But Isco forgot that Alvaro had once gurgled bubble making liquid with him and tried to blow them out of his mouth so Alvaro asked him if there was room for two in Spain.

"Im here already? You only need room for one?"

"My wife."

Isco said no.

~

Alvaro made room. He moved back four years after because the club wanted him. A fan favorite, was what they said. Isco wondered why society always worshipped the vices.

He had replaced milk with beer in his cereal a while ago so when Alvaro ended up on his doorstep in the morning he was buzzed.

"What?"

Alvaro looked fresh. He smiled. Isco stared. He wrung his hands. And Alvaro took them gently between his own, shut the door with his back leaning against it and pulled Isco into his chest.

Isco stayed stiff but whispered "Where were you?" Into Alvaro's shoulder.

And he got "Making life shorter than it already was." In response.

~

He was invited to dinner. He did not want to. But he could not refuse.

"She'll be making dinner." Alvaro told him over the phone. He'd claimed he needed to hear his voice more often.

She was excited to meet the best friend he barely ever talked about and she never saw in person. 

He came late. Planned on leaving early. The food was lasagna. Her specialty. And if you tried really hard you could scan the bottom of Isco's foot and bring home the same bottle of wine that was paired with their dinner.

Isco excused himself to the bathroom and didn't remember what he expected when Alvaro ended up behind him in the tiny room except that he had somehow expected it all along. 

He washed the dirt from his hands afterwards using the overly scented Italian shit she mentioned before and the fish on Alvaro's chest tasted better than anything he ate that night.

~

Alvaro loved him. He said so himself while they lay flat on their backs in a park lot looking at real stars.

Isco reminded him that he loved dogs and peaches and antique music boxes and beer in plastic cups but did he love Isco enough to leave her?

No. Yes. He didn't know. He had never known anything didn't Isco remember? He followed wherever looked appealing at that moment. And he loved her enough to not want to hurt her. Not yet. Not ever? It wouldn't be fair.

Isco didn't say anything. Alvaro took it as anger. But Isco knew what he said was right. There was nothing to say.

~

Gareth still held non alcoholic parties but Isco just got drunk before he arrived and no one was in the mood to pump him dry.

They played scrabble and twister and truth or dare but now no one dared Alvaro to do anything dirty because he was a loyal husband now. They didn't want to be homewreckers. No one knew the moldings and nails in the house started coming undone before the house was even finished.

Isco hated parties now and Alvaro always drove him home, stayed lingering in the kitchen cleaning up imaginary crumbs until he got the kiss on his lower back that he was waiting for. Isco redrew the Chinese letters he had with a shaky finger every time. 

And when she started complaining about Spain, started claiming that he didn't start enough, that Italy needed him, that she wanted to move back Alvaro drafted the second transfer request with Isco sitting next to him.

~

He didn't get imaginary Chinese tattoos after the last party Isco claimed he'd ever go to. 

He got the remains of a scraped off bumper sticker and a transfer confirmation instead.

And they cried into each other's shoulders while Isco held Alvaro's hand because they'd arrived at the end of the whisky droplets and they were going to have to settle for less.


End file.
